What was australia first used as by the british

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The Chicago-based Pinkerton Detective The dismembered body of Florence Polillo is found in a basket and several burlap sacks in Cleveland. The year-old woman was the third victim in 18 months to be found dismembered with precision. At the request of President Jimmy Carter, the U. The action was in response to the Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan the previous month. Opposition to transportation grew with increasing numbers of free settlers in the s, but it took until for the last convict ship to pull into Western Australia.

The British sent criminals to NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and WA, but freed convicts soon spread their footprint across the country, and these days, one in five Australians is the descendant of a convict. At first, the fledgling Australian colonies were ashamed of their criminal roots and tried to shake off the association, but today, Australians take a perverse pride in their convict history.

Throughout the 20th century, historians helped change the perception of convicts both by highlighting the injustice of transportation — an excessive punishment for trivial crimes committed by desperate, impoverished people — and by telling the stories of iconic convicts such as seminal Australian novelist Henry Savery and architect Francis Greenway.

We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK". Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. By colonising Australia Britain gained an important base for its ships in the Pacific Ocean.

It also gained an important resource in terms of being somewhere to send convicts. However, this ended when the Americans declared their independence. Transportation was an important part of the legal system in Britain, and by the s there were large numbers of convicts in Britain who had been sentenced to transportation and had nowhere to go! New South Wales presented the ideal opportunity for Britain to get rid of its convicts and in the next 60 years about , were transported to Australia.

Thousands of other British settlers also migrated to Australia. They were attracted by the easily available land which led to conflict with the aborigines. They could make a living raising sheep or by catching seals and whales.